A Recovery
by Timemidae
Summary: After the War, Andromeda and Narcissa form an uneasy alliance in order to recover the body of their cousin, Regulus Black, from the cave by the sea.
1. Chapter 1

"Absolutely not." Andromeda glares at the sleek, blonde head currently occupying her kitchen hearth.

"I told you what Harry told me because you deserved to know and because he deserves to be remembered" _…and because I needed to tell someone and you're the only person left alive who might care_ , she doesn't finish. "I've asked you not to contact me here," her hand twitches to extinguish the flames.

"Please Meda!"

"Why me? Your husband must have plenty of free time these days."

Narcissa presses her thin lips together, looks down into the grating, "Lucius…hasn't been well lately, not since…."

Andromeda searches her heart and is unsurprised when she fails to locate a scrap of sympathy for Lucius Malfoy.

"Bring Draco then."

Narcissa's eyes grow bright with chill fury. Her words, when they come, drop from her mouth like stones into a cold, black pool, "If you are suggesting that I take my son to that place. If you think he needs to see _that_. Andromeda, he's eighteen years old."

No, loath as Andromeda is to admit it, Narcissa is right. Andromeda scarcely knows her nephew, but she understands why Narcissa would shelter him from this task. It will probably be dangerous and will certainly be grisly…and he is eighteen years old.

Narcissa must see something of this realization in her eyes, for her anger is immediately cast off as she reverts to pet-names and pleading, "Please Meda, he was the best of us."

Andromeda scoffs. "What about Sirius? Remember that some of us never served your Dark Lord." _what about me?_

"Please Meda, you're the oldest now. You have a responsibility; think of your duty toward the family."

This is her breaking point. "A responsibility? You're taking to me about responsibility? I'm responsible for my grandson. His parents are dead because some friends of his great-aunts' murdered them. He is six-months old and he needs me. I am all that he has left, so don't you dare talk to me about my duty to my family."

The fire hisses and sputters out.

Andromeda finishes making supper, warms a bottle for Teddy, settles him on her lap as he drinks. His hair is a pleasant sort of lilac today. His eyes are a familiar green—Harry's been visiting quite a lot lately.

With her grandson's weight warm in her lap, she finally thinks of her cousin. He's been lost for so many years; it feels strange these days, gratuitous and almost indecent, to be rubbing away at this old grief when she has so very many that are so much fresher.

He was just a boy when she was cast out, about to start Hogwarts. She never saw him after, so this is how she pictures him, ten years old, slender and shy, incomprehensibly devoted to Aunt Walburga. When she'd heard that he'd joined up it had been hard for her to imagine it. It's not that she was surprised, she knew (or thought she knew) where his loyalties lay, but surely he was still a child, hiding in the shelter of his mother's robes. How quickly he must have gone from presiding over tea parties with the house-elves to running about abetting brutal murders. And then, when Harry told her the end of her cousin's story, that had been hard to imagine too. He must have been so frightened.

Teddy is sleeping now. She lifts him to his crib, settles him in. There are tears drying on her face. She cries so often now, she scarcely notices. Most of the time she does not cry over any one thing, it's just the sea of grief inside of her, sloshing over and out her eye sockets.

She washes her face, returns to the kitchen. Kneels before the fire. "Fine Narcissa, I'll help. I'll help you bring Regulus home. But I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for him."

Note:

I think relative ages are useful to know for stories about family dynamics, here are the dates I've been using:

Belatrix b. 1951  
Andromeda b. ~1953  
her daughter is born in 1973, so I'm assuming she was openly in a relationship with Ted Tonks and would have been disowned by 1971.

Narcissa b. 1955  
Sirius b. 1959  
Regulus b. 1961 d. 1979


	2. Chapter 2

Narcissa sits gingerly on the chair that Andromeda indicated to her when she arrived. Tea has not been offered.

Andromeda has stepped out of the room for a moment—attending to the baby, Narcissa supposes, and so Narcissa is on her own in the strange kitchen. She has been here once before, when Nymphadora was born, but it was only a fleeting visit, and the room is no more familiar for a second viewing. Narcissa isn't sure, but she thinks that is has changed since she's last been here, in any case.

The kitchen in Malfoy Manor has not been altered significantly since the renovations of 1894. Not that Narcissa ever spent much of her time in the kitchen of Malfoy Manor—their house-elves have had everything well in hand for centuries.

Andromeda's kitchen however, here are new…devices in place, all shining enamel, bedecked with knobs and buttons, a clock that winks at her with glowing red eyes. Narcissa wishes she had a cup of tea; it would at least give her something to do with her hands. She cannot feel quite comfortable in Andromeda's home. Of course, she cannot quite feel comfortable in her own home either…

She stands. Wanders towards a tall, enameled cabinet. Photographs have been affixed to it with sticking charms. In almost all of them a baby coos, or smiles, or weeps, its face flitting from expression to expression and appearance to appearance. The last time Narcissa was here this surface was also decorated with photos of a child. It's impossible to tell from the images alone, none of the child's features were ever static, but Narcissa knows that none of those photographs remain in this particular gallery, maybe they have been put away, but she thinks it more likely that Andromeda has moved them to some other place in the house, some more suitable spot for enshrining a daughter.

"Well?"

Narcissa whirls, attempting to smooth the motion into something resembling her usual, studied grace. Something flits over Andromeda's face that might, in bygone days, have been a smirk.

Narcissa recovers ably. She has arranged this meeting, for all that it's on Andromeda's terms. "Yes, we must begin to arrange the logistics. The Dark Lord is dead, so his enchantments should no longer be operative, however it would be unwise to use anything less than extreme caution. We must have damp-resistant robes made, of course," Andromeda looks like she is about to speak, but seems to decide otherwise, Narcissa presses on, "and it's probably necessary that we acquire an interiorly extended vessel in order to store the remains, something tasteful of course, and then there is the matter of a guide. I suppose I can leave it to you to convince Potter to accompany us…"

Narcissa is momentarily thrown when the modest wooden chair unceremoniously tips her off. From her new position on the kitchen floor, she watches red come boiling out of the tile, it resolves into a thick, painted arrow towards the door. "Get. Out. Of. My. House." Andromeda glares down at Narcissa. Oddly enough, from this angle, and wearing this expression, she reminds Narcissa of no one so much as their mother. "If you think that I am putting that poor boy through anything more, If you think that I will ever bring him back to that place, or that I will let any more harm come to a single hair on his head, then you are not welcome here and I will not be seeing you again."

Narcissa picks herself up and grinds her teeth, yes, perhaps she should have anticipated this. An orphaned boy, a bereaved mother. Meda has always been fiercely protective of those she loves. But they need him, don't they? He is the only one who has been to the cave and still lives, the only one who can show them where to go. Unless? There is another.


End file.
